Social Interactions in Preschool Classrooms and the Development of Young Children's Conceptions of the Personal

Two studies examined preschool teacher and child interactions regarding personal, moral, and social-conventional issues in the classroom and the development of personal concepts in young children. In Study 1, 20 preschool classrooms, 10 with 3-year-olds and 10 with 4-year-olds, were observed to assess children's and teachers' interactions regarding personal, moral, social-conventional, and mixed events. Teachers used more direct messages regarding moral and social-conventional events than personal and mixed events. Teachers offered children choices, but they rarely negotiated personal events with children. Children responded with personal choice assertions when adults offered them choices, but adults did not differ in the frequency that they negated or affirmed children's assertions of personal choice. In Study 2, 120 preschool children, nearly evenly divided between males and females at 3, 4, and 5 years of age, were interviewed regarding their conceptions of personal events in the classroom and home. With age, children judged that they should retain control over personal decisions in both contexts. In both judgments and social interactions, teachers and children identified a personal domain in which children can and should make choices about how to structure their activities and assert their independence in the classroom.     

Working in groups: social and cognitive effects in a special class

Judith Watson, Reader in Education at the University of Edinburgh, considers the potential of social-constructivist ideas of teaching and learning for pupils with learning difficulties and reports on the introduction of social learning experiences within a special unit for pupils with moderate learning difficulties.     

Zur symbiotischen Handlungsstruktur informellen Sportengagements

Informal sports can be described by looking at its symbiotic structure: the three roles doing sports, facilitating sports and organizing sports, coincide. This paper discusses what this means for the sports activities of adolescents. The areas in which informal sports activities for adolescents take place as well as the social structure are shaped by this symbiotic structure: informal sport is about using and defining space to create new sports facilities. On the basis of ethnographic research this paper will analyze how one gets “into the game” in those special areas. Due to missing external organizations, individuals are confronted with entry barriers because of established outsider relations. The established members differ from outsiders in that they can realize their own idea of sport. Gender differences are an important aspect in this context which will exemplarily be reconstructed and analyzed at the end.     

Assessing levels of student understanding in pre-service teachers using a two-cycle SOLO model

This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study concerning the development of higher-order conceptual understanding of Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) among physical education pre-service teachers. The development of such understandings has been seen as problematic among pre-service teachers (Randall, 2003 Randall, L. 2003. Preservice teachers' understanding of teaching games for understanding approach to content delivery. Avante, 9(1): 49–61.  [Google Scholar]). An analysis of the responses given in a high- stakes examination of 165 pre-service physical education teachers was used to investigate varying levels of understanding in TGfU pedagogy. This paper reports specific examples of student responses in a written high-stakes examination and justifies how a two-cycle structure of the observed learning outcome (SOLO) model can discriminate between the demonstrations of surface and deep conceptual understandings.     

Competing views of teaching in a school–university partnership

This case study examines how differing views on the teacher's role in school reform affected the work of a school–university partnership. The school district and the university had a history of partnerships and shared common general goals. Yet, as the partnership progressed, conflicting perspectives about teaching and the purpose of professional development became evident and created dilemmas that influenced the nature of the work. We provide background information about each partner, describe the two views, and examine how the differing perspectives influenced the goals and activities of the partnership. This study highlights the complex issues embedded in school–university collaboration.     

Does regular online testing enhance student learning in the numerical sciences? Robust evidence from a large data set

While a number of studies have been conducted on the impact of online assessment and teaching methods on student learning, the field does not seem settled around the promised benefits of such approaches. It is argued that the reason for this state of affairs is that few studies have been able to control for a number of confounding factors in student performance. We report on the introduction of a regular (every 3 weeks) low-mark online assessment tool in a large, first-year business mathematics course at the University of New South Wales, a major Australian university. Using a retrospective regression methodology together with a very large and rich data set, we test the proposition that exposure to the online assessment instrument enhances student learning. Significantly, we are able to control for prior student aptitude, in-course mastery, gender and even effort via a voluntary class attendance proxy. Furthermore, the study incorporates two large, and statistically diverse cohorts as well as manipulations in the model tested to robustly examine the outcomes. Our central result is that higher exposure to the online instrument robustly leads to higher student learning, all else being equal. Various implications for online assessment design, implementation and targeting are also discussed.